I remember my first iPod, what a great invention.
Agree completely.
To my mind, one of the best ever inventions: By that, I mean, this is an invention that has had a positively transformative effect on my quality of life.
Of course, there have been other more revolutionary, or profitable, or beneficial (or destructive) inventions - but for the circumstances of my life, the invention of the iPod - its small (and portable) size, its capacity to store (and play) vast quantities of music (discussed by
@LizKat in her excellent post below) qualities which made - and make - it possible to listen to one's entire music library when abroad for months at a time, - has been transformative.
Once upon a time, I had to use a CD player - the CD version of the Sony Walkman, a fine piece of equipment, and very portable, but it was very greedy for batteries, and required that you transport the CDs, too, naturally enough.
Once upon an even more distant time, around a decade or so earlier, in order to be able to listen to my music, I remember having to physically transport a combined DC/radio/cassette player to the former eastern Europe in the early 90s, this was a time when I spent several months there, and such a piece of equipment was unheard of in those parts.
So, iPods were an absolute godsend, if music mattered in your life.
I had borrowed the Quatuor Mosaïques Haydn Op 20 works on period instruments(Astree, 2000) from the library and thought them so wonderful that I promptly asked a sibling for that for Christmas. That and the download I got today are the only ones I think I’ve heard aside from a much older one by the Amadeus Quartet, via analog-digital transfer so that was at a bit of a remove. I don’t know if I ever ripped that set and may have lent out the CDs meaning I’ll likely never see them again. Anyway these Kodály downloads from Apple Music are very nice and will keep me Haydn-happy until Christmas when Santa Claus shows up with the Mosaïques CDs.
My grandparents had a console radio and record player in their living room back in the 1940s. It was about one-third the size of a VW beetle, I think. And I remember that first iPod too. Wow. I’ll take digital tracks over those 78rpm dinnerplates any day, not least for relative heft of the stuff it takes to get soundwaves out of them. I still sometimes glance at a clip-on iPod shuffle that I wear doing chores around the house and am amazed that I can cart around so much music on something so tiny. I feel so lucky having lived through this timeframe of tech development related to production and reproduction of music performed live or in studios.
One day I was upstairs in my grandparents' attic, on an assigned mission to retrieve spare linens or dishes or something, I was briefly distracted by finding a box full of old concert programs apparently obtained by someone in the family who had attended the concerts and kept the souvenirs. Touring quartets, piano soloists, lieder singers; those were the only performances one got to hear before radio and recordings arrived in ordinary households, unless some members of a family were accomplished amateur musicians themselves. Now we all have portable devices with gigabytes and more of music. I sometimes imagine envy on the part of some ancestors.
Terrific post.
Ah, the old 78 rpm vinyl. My mother had inherited some of them, - massive, heavy things from the 40s, made from shellac, (as I now know) and the first record player we had as kids was able to play them. We were amazed at the speed of rotation of the 78s, and tried it with some of the 45s, and 33s, (that squeaky sound of a high pitched voice was irresistibly hilarious to a child's ear) until my father caught us and made it clear that he was Not Impressed.
Agree re the wonders of having lived through the technological marvels of this age, at least in terms of music storage and playing. And agree about the wonder from those of our ancestors who loved music. My father would have loved the iPod - he was open to new technology, and passionate about his music.
Having said that, he always used to remark on how much better the record-players - and, later - stereos - that were available from the 70s were to what he had grown up with. Indeed, he was the family stereo-buyer, (though we, brothers and self, were the main users) and adored undertaking extensive and meticulous research before making a purchase (when he investigated brands, specs, price).
When he was dating my mother in the 50s, one of the gifts he gave her - very expensive at the time - was a top class record player, (treasured by her) - I think it might have been a Phillips - which was still working perfectly until we were teenagers two decades later, and was used - a lot - by us, until it died and was replaced by a stereo bought by him.
And yes, many of those older homes, especially the middle class ones, had pianos, and anyone half talented, with half an ear, could play fairly competently, while some were very accomplished musicians.
